Street Thief; faux-documentary, 2006

One of the best parts of this personal challenge is the element of randomness… In an effort to see films I normally wouldn’t bother with on Netflix, I find myself pushing the play button before reading a description of the title. This is one of those films.

The selection seemed potentially interesting – just shy of ninety minutes with content that well reflects the title. Street Thief seemed at first blush to be a documentary on a professional burglar. Kaspar Carr is a slick, groomed yet street-smart “breaking and entering” pro who allows a film crew yo follow his criminal exploits.

The first hour slinks into the shadowy underworld of the thief. Like all good documentaries, it slowly peels back the layers of both the man and his craft, but in the case of Kaspar very little is revealed. A patient professional, he leads the crew on a number of capers as he cases, and robs, cash-heavy businesses.

The painstaking attention to detail serves almost as a primer to felonious life, with Kaspar sharing detailed trade secrets from target selection to wiretapping. But the character remains an enigma throughout, a devious persona that comes off with the same brute force as the drills and saws he uses for safecracking -- but without as much depth or charm.

When the film takes a sudden turn with Kaspar’s disappearance, the remaining third fumbles awkwardly, tying his untimely death to the only ill-conceived job in a string of successful and lucrative burglaries. Like downshifting on the highway from fifth directly to first gear, Street Thief turns suddenly from documentary into “true-crime drama,” trailing parts and smoke in its wake. It became so improbable I had to stop it to read the Netflix description; all at once, it became painfully obvious….

“An inventive blend of fact and fiction, Street Thief is hardly a documentary, as its protagonist and story line are made up -- but the information it reveals about the criminal mind is shockingly real.”

Faux Doc. It’s back, and I should have paid attention when my very conscious “Blair Witch” red flags started waving. The moment a camera crew becomes an active part of the mise en scene, introduced for no apparent reason, I start to question the validity.

But they did get me at first. Having clicked play on a whim, I earnestly thought I was watching a documentary. It seemed odd a thief would boldly go on camera, but the style was so flawless and the misdirection so complete, I was drawn in with fascination for the first 20 minutes.

After the running start, the film falls short at every turn and fails in the final analysis. After all, it’s not a surprise that an unlikable character in an unforgiving business makes an unfortunate mistake and gets killed; the surprise is that they expected an audience to go along for the ride.

Rating: Three of ten shopping baskets

Medication: 4 mg dilaudid, 100 mg pregabalin

Pain Level: 4

TO WATCH STREET THIEF ON NETFLIX, CLICK HERE

Her Masters Voice; Documentary, 2012

Some things defy categorizing or deft analysis no matter how deeply you peer inside. Perhaps these are the things best left alone and undisturbed to review. And sometimes it’s the film itself that wanders into uncomfortable spaces, but they are rarely personal enough to invade with such intimacy. By design, even documentaries remain safely outside, no matter how they try to pry the subject open and illuminate it with

klieg lights. Unless you add dummies.

Ventriloquists are an odd bunch, practicing the art of talking to themselves for the entertainment of others. Two voices, two personalities, two narratives; and that’s just onstage. Could this be a psychiatric fantasy? Her Master’s Voice, an autobiographical documentary by master ventriloquist Nina Conti gives an uncomfortably close examination of her own internal struggle, externalized through a variety of sentimentally important ventriloquist mannequins.

Nina is about to give up her lucrative stint and hang up Monk, her latex monkey hand-puppet, when she discovers her mentor and former lover, Ken Campbell (an eclectic figure in British theater), passed. He bequeathed his numerous dummies (including a likeness of himself) to her care, along with an old note telling her to visit the Venthaven International Ventriloquism Convention in Kentucky. After consulting with Monk, Nina decides to take the journey, and retire one of Ken’s dummies to the Venthaven collection. She and her right hand set off to America with a suitcase of characters.

On one hand, it is a study in the art and wit of the professional ventriloquism. It is rare that Nina appears without a foil of some sort on her arm. Whether it is her familiar Monk, or one of the various appendages from Ken’s exploits (which include an old man named Gertrude Stein, a crow, an owl, and Ken himself), there is always a “second character” in the room.

Her skills, as well those of other artists she interviews, is clearly astounding. The one-person, two-voice conversations she improvises are witty, smart, and smack of well learned timing that elevate her to that level of critical success. Whether in an interview panel with Monk, lying in bed with her bare hand, milling the crowd with Owl, or giving Gertrude Stein his first swimming experience (“you have to wring me dry!”), the art of ventriloquism is always on display. The characters come loose and easy, the quips fast, but the lips never move -- even when the most personal moments are brought up by her alter-egos.

But its these closer, more personal discussions, such as the relationship between Nina’s abortion and the appearance of Monk seven months later, that take us to an uncomfortable place of intimacy. At times, the comedy feels more like a desperate attempt to turn painful truths into a punchline as a means of hiding and escape. In a sense, ventriloquism is the ultimate adult make-believe, and here it often feels as if the artists have suspended their own disbelief.

Perhaps the art is a struggle between the ego and id, with the dummy an unconscious, psychological extension of the things we all want to say but dare not. Nina’s story is broken up by interviews with other ventriloquists, lending a threadbare masquerade of documentary patina above the personal dramas played out with puppets. To paraphrase Jay Johnson, the American ventriloquist known for his recurring role on the 80's sitcom Soap, “I can blame everything on the puppet.”

At an hour, it makes for a quick view in spite of the homemade “did it with a Handycam from Best Buy” look. I had no foreknowledge of Nina’s celebrity in Europe, but the story seemed too personal to escape the feelings of quiet discomfort, in spite of the clever funny bits, having crossed too far past that line to safely return. Even though Nina happily returns to ventriloquism, we are left a bit baffled and uncomfortable at the film. Its not so much a documentary as an homage mashed with a talk therapy session, wrapped gently is a comedy candy shell. With creepy mannequins.

Rating: Three of five Urban Assault Vehicles

Medication: 3 mg dilaudid, 100 mg pregabalin

Pain level: 4

TO WATCH HER MASTER'S VOICE ON NETFLIX, CLICK HERE

What its all about

The idea is pretty simple.

On Friday the thirteenth, some guy with a mask slashed my throat. Thankfully, his name was Dr. Verma, not Jason Voorhees, and the slicing was for an anterior approach to my c5/c6 cervical joint for an artifial disc replacement. Even better, I was under anesthesia the whole time.

It takes about 3 monhts for enough bone to grow into the implant to anchor it enough for normal, daily life. So even though I will feel better in a few weeks, it will take a few months of sitting quielty and resting until it's strong enough to return to work.

So what to do in the meantime? I turned to the modern-day best friend to the couch potato, the B-movie and TV proviso for the midnight bleary and meth head alike. I decided to turn my attention to Netflix.

Over the course of my recovery, I will watch and review as many films as I can on Netflix. The reviews will be posted in this blog. I think 100 is a very easy goal to set for this project, with the only limitiation my return to work. But who knows - I may have so much fun I keep going.

The reviews will not be typical, and I ascribe to no specific scale. But beware - they shall be judged on a whim.

And to make things more interesting, I'll be reporting the various post-surgical medications I'm taking at the time of the review, and each review gets a single markup and rewrite before posting. In spite of the modern miracles called auto spell and grammar check, expect to see unpolished pieces with errors of both kinds. I'm curious how different medications affect my writing.